Chapter 22: The Lady

... Continues the Book of Hephaestion:

With a dream, then, it began.

* * *

There were two messages from John Manegold. Hephaestion was awake when the Holland-Tchey cruiser, Cyon, received them.

The first was expected. It was the tag on the credit transfer from Talos using Manegold's computer code. The tag lit up the Cyon's communication tracing program as though a switch had been flipped.

The Talos credit destination was not Hupei.

The second message, coming from the transmitter hidden in John's body, was more alarming.

Hephaestion and Zoa had already tranfered to a small fleet of gliders burning toward Amorium on the Old Continent. Upon receipt of the second message, the Cyon left Talos airspace, climbing to a high geonsynchronous orbit over Amorium City. From the command deck of the Cyon, Syrinx opened official dialogue with ITAN, sharing most, though not all, of the information collected by her operation team.

She did not tell ITAN Burgolt Manegold had applied unsuccessfully to the Lady for medical treatment. Nor did she give away the source of her information and the location of the Hupei base.

ITAN dispatched its crack counterterrorism task force. Led by a laconic Solonian named Kier Tomalsi, the task force was wheels down at Nautia International Airport two hours behind the Holland-Tchey glider fleet. Tomalsi had been given a com link to the Holland-Tchey response unit. He used it to stay briefed and coordinate emergency deployment into Amorium City. Though the Empire of Amorium enjoyed full Treaty membership, Amorium City, fondly called the AC by millions of pilgrims, did not suffer in its pristine sky the vessels of commercial or war, including the superjets of ITAN's enforcers and the high-tech gliders of the Holland-Tchey's Science Commission.

It was on the secure side of Nautia's airport that the Amorites' elite Emergency Readiness Unit, along with Amorium City's militia executive branch, met Zoa, Hephaestion, and the rest of the Holland-Tchey operatives.

The popular story on Amorium described an open civilization led by an agreeable sitting emperor. Its economy did well on tourism, which ran year-round as pilgrims from all over came for face time with the renown cleric in Amorium City. The empire's points of interest-- Port of Cypria, easily one of the largest ports in the world, and Nautia, the empire's present-age capital --were modern examples of economic advantage and the profitable confluence of Old Continent culture. Like the UKSB, the empire never suffered a fascist age or reformation. As a target for extremists, Amorium received its share of threats, duly investigated, sometimes with the assistance of ITAN. None had come to fruition. Until now, those threats, supposed and actual, were against Nautia, for its airport and reputation as a major banking center, and Port of Cypria. As the Lady played in most religions on the planet, the world revered the AC with its cloistered high priestess as the center of peace. The popular opinion, shared by many in the counterterrorism game, was a successful attack against the Citadel would rattle people globally. Terrorist networks and radicals everywhere would find, thereafter, their funds dried up, their suppliers vanished, and the collective finger of the world, high and low, leveled at them in open aggression. What group with a single brain cell wanted that?

In an auditorium on the secure side of Nautia Airport, Zoa told an assembly of law enforcers about a device human in design, powered by an alien core, and capable of changing the future of human life. To their credit, the agents, task force, and militia received the news with professional calm. With Zoa's operatives, Hephaestion sat alongside the stage, his gaze fixed on Zoa. No one questioned his right to be there or his point of origin. It was assumed he was on Zoa's staff. His eyes, the odd color of them, made him otherworldly enough.

Meanwhile, Zoa showed the Holland-Tchey's composite of the device, what it would look like once the human components had been added. The device, she opined, would be bulky, about the size of a cargo container. Some technical chatter followed, the whys and wherefors, and finally it was time to hand out assignments.

She gave the ERU the task of compiling data on all shipments acceped in the last two seasons into the AC with Quiranium.

She asked the militia to suspend the AC's no-fly rule and let her bring her gliders and a larger transport ship as near as possible to the device. The device, she told the assembly, must be flown away from land as quickly as possible. As copious amounts of deadly radiation was a by-product of detonation, a special ship would be used to force-contain the blast. The ship needed to descend into AC airspace. Ideally, the blast should occur outside the gravity well. The ship was capable of transporting the device immediately into space, although the final solution depended greatly on device's human components, its defenses, and the construction of the trigger.

"What about evacuation?" a senior AC official asked.

"No matter," Zoa said.

The official missed her point.

Zoa explained. "If there is a detonation on land, there is no safe zone available in the time that is left."

Another asked quickly, "How much time is left?"

Zoa did not tell them that Burgolt Manegold had gone to ground with his sons. She said, simply, "The shelf life on this project, we believe, is very brief. Therefore, we should assume we have hours, not days, to locate the device."

* * *

The briefing had entered its Q & A phase when Hephaestion saw them. He shifted his psychic shield a little. There were five Citadel guards breaking away from the militia executive branch, making for a side aisle and the auditorium stage. They dressed like the militia executives, but they were significantly younger, thirty-something men and one woman, athletic, grim, and extremely focused.

The Citadel guards were headed for Zoa.

Hephaestion got in their way. "Not now," he said to the man in front.

The man started to push by, and then checked. He was tall with short, sandy hair and a strong face. His eyes hid behind shades.

"Tell your master," the Citadel guard said coldly, "the arrival and storage of such a device within a certain radius of the Lady is impossible."

Hephaestion understood the man's confidence. He would not have challenged it ordinarily, except the man was mostly wrong and the ERU and militia executives were in hearing distance.

"You are assuming intervention," Hepahestion said into the growing quiet. "You are assuming She will stop it."

Divine intervention-- outside Amorium, he would never suggest so trite and antiquated a concept at a gathering of law enforcers. In Amorium, however, he was speaking to the heirs of a history of intervention by divine figures.

The man, whose identification said he was Rena Samos, studied Hephaestion. "I assume nothing. A certain area within my jurisdiction is protected against these sorts of things."

Hephaestion pursed his lips and nodded. He felt for the man. You could live within kilometers of Her and believe as Samos did. It did not matter how close or how far you were, actually. You only needed to listen and hear what you wanted to hear, instead of what was said.

"For privacy," Hephaestion said back. "She lays out her shield for privacy, not security." This was partially true. When provoked, no matter the source of provocation, the Lady could interfere with the dispersal and direction of energy, whether such occurred in a wave or beam. So could he. It was not the so-called shield that effected this, but they-- themselves. It was a power that came at birth and expanded with age.

The suited men and the woman were, all of them, staring at him. Security measures, including the existence of an ethereal shield around Amorium City, was information shared with no one, not even the Holland-Tchey.

"Who are you?" demanded Samos.

The ERU officers and militia supervisors had swiveled around, wanting to know the same.

Hephaestion concentrated on Samos. He pushed with his mind, but only a little. He didn't want to lobotomize or otherwise traumatize the man. And he had a feeling Samos was no stranger to the soft intrusion of the thoughts of another inside his skull. A hunch, but one worth making.

With his power, Hepahestion wrote upon the man's mind: I am one who knows Her, who has spoken with Her.

Samos went wide-eyed.

Hephaestion sighed. "It is a mistake to believe She would know of the device or consider the device worthy of intervention, if She knew. Likewise, it is my belief the area of protection, the city itself, is precisely why the scanning equipment used by the Science Commission cannot detect the device. A device it knows exists, here, on our world."

Samos sat back, unspeaking. The ERU and militia executives settled down. Zoa finished the briefing by dismissing everyone.

Samos, surrounded by his men, stayed put. He faced Hephaestion, muscles clearly straining the fabric of his well-cut suit. His clean-shaven face was stern. "How did you do that?"

Hephaestion did not smile. There had been a time, long ago, when he would have. He felt another way, now, about men and women who mistook him for a common magician.

He had to be careful. He wanted to touch the minds of the Citadel men but not the men in the ERU or AC police. And the room was full of people.

-- You are not strangers to this power.

Samos's jaw clenched. "You're Science Commission? I don't think so."

-- I am of this world.

The security guards glanced uneasily at each other.

"What is your name?" Samos demanded.

Hephaestion moved closer. The guards flinched. He supposed they had had to be educated, to know something of the history of the being they guarded. As he'd shaken open their minds, they were ready to conceive the inconceivable.

He filled their heads with a series of images like snapshots, like a slideshow. Tithonus in his blood-smeared armor on the field under the ancient walls of Amorium City, the head of their glorious founder Constantine passing from his gauntlets into the slender, supple hands of the Lady.

The guards, all but one, backed up. Samos, comparing the image in his mind to the one in the history logs of his city, and to the man in front of him, pressed his mouth into a long stoic line. And then, slowly, he inclined his head.

Hephaestion was surprised that, along with fear, there would be respect.

"Will She see me?" he wondered.

Samos said, evenly, "I do not speak for Her." Although he had made the mistake previously, he did not do so again. "But I will find out." And then he said: "These men will stay with you."

Hephaestion said, "A guard is useless. I am Hers by will. She is like god to me."

Alarm grafted itself onto Samos's features. "You mistake me, my lord. It is our charge to guard the gilded, and that is what we will do. You will not be able to wield the gilding once we reach the city proper. Until the Lady tells otherwise, we are yours."

* * *

The walls of Amorium had been raised to shore up the tyranny of an ancient priest called Pixandatilus and his emperor, Atlantes I, back when the lands of Amorium were green valleys serviced by the mighty Diona and Mercia rivers and a series of springs that ran from the mountains to the sea.

In the modern world, the walls conjured, not the brutal epochs of warmongering and conquest, but the gentle yet tireless rule of Constantine, the decades of temple construction, the coming into being of the Citadel.

Modern Amorium City was a respite full of winding cobblestone, plaster columns, balconied windows, sidewalk stands, town estates, and terraced gardens. The police patroled from horseback. There were no motor cars in the city proper. The outskirts, with its phalanx of hotels and restaurants, introduced tourists to underground rail cars and above-ground carriages. Always in the distance, the taupe and ivory spires of the Citadel: the manifestation of hope, renewal, and unknowable power. Although She attended regularly the balcony ceremonies in the Plaza du Magnificens, one never knew if She would pass through the lower tiers of the Citadel as one toured the Aracelia for one's once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of the Relic. Would she perform a miracle, save a life, restore a limb? Would one discover within one's soul the secret to the cosmos by stepping where She, the voice of the goddess, meandered, worshiping where She worshipped? Bring credits for food, but the cost of transportation was negligible and the price of touring Her precincts was a smile and a wave. On the surface, things ran as they should. It was beneath the surface where matters became complex.

Many attempted to, and occasionally succeeded in plying officials and guards with credits to know where She would appear, how to place oneself in Her path. Arriving in Her presence did not guarantee an exchange, and there were some who did not understand this. However, those who came to be in her sight generally benefited from the experience. Sometimes those who tried to pay wondered why the Lady was shy with herself. They didn't get it. Sometimes there were incidents.

Hephaestion listened as his escort, Samos, told stories about well-heeled types who thought the answer to everything was wealth. Zoa and her operatives followed, while the militia executives hurried to meet Tomalsi and the rest of the ITAN group. Zoa had tasked the ERU to find shipments that had entered the AC with Quiranium. The ERU promised the information within the hour. Zoa reckoned an hour was about all they had, given the presence of Burgolt Manegold in the Hupei stronghold.

The credits leaving Talos had flowed into a bank in Nautia. What good were credits, the team wondered, in a world that was no more? Burgolt had compartmentalized knowledge of the operation, meaning no one knew what his or her part would lead to in the end. A Manegold or Holbek operative, temporarily and independently wealthy, had verified the credits, leaving a time and date stamp at login. The login was done with a secure connection initiated on a wireless service in the AC. There was no trace, just a provider name, because traces inside the AC were impossible.

That was, until the Lady turned off Her shield.

Meanwhile, Zoa trailed Hephaestion, Samos, and the Citadel guards through connecting gardens inside the Residence. Samos had told them access to the Residence, for outsiders, was rare, nearly unheard of.

Pouring from a door above the last garden was a team of security staff accompanied by officers.

Zoa edged to Hephaestion's side. "Tell them how much of our time we're wasting."

* * *

You will not be able to wield the gilding ...

Not altogether true but true enough.

He was aware of the "protection area" the instant he entered it and perhaps a few moments before. But it wasn't as though he'd never felt it before. There was a reason Constantine left the walls of Amorium City to fight him, and a reason Constantine came out alone.

Two reasons, actually.

Arriving in the AC, Hephaestion had let down his shield. It was failing anyway, a flame submerged in water. His ears filled with the deluge, a cool, clear liquid. The Lady's power was calm and quiet as a breeze.

Leaving the bullet train that brought them from Nautia to the AC, Zoa had noted that her equipment produced unreliable readings. Uplinks and communication were unaffected but scans were impossible. A steady, unrelenting signal, Zoa said about the interference, itself undetectable unless it was, as her equipment suggested, everywhere.

Her telepathy failed. So did his. He was expecting this.

"What kind of technology causes this?" Zoa wondered, and no one answered.

Her frustration was understandable. He wanted to give her his hand. She's aware of us, he thought. But Zoa could not "hear" him. In the end, he touched her shoulder so she would look at him. In his glance he hoped she'd see what she needed to know. We're so much less, here.

Now, the guards came out under an overcast sky, a gray-haired man in a dark suit leading them. Was this her chief now, her most trusted warrior? A disturbing thought. Hephaestion was surprised to form it.

The chief agent walked to him. "She will see you inside. You may bring one companion."

Knowing Zoa would follow, Hephaestion strode by the agent. They took the stone-cut steps quickly, entered the shade of an anteroom under a lintel cut from jade. Hephaestion thought, Constantine made this, and She accepts it, though She never craved any of this for herself.

Two steps onto the marble floor, he froze. How would he know what she craved or did not crave? Why did her power act so upon the powerful, turning one's weakness against oneself? His weakness was hubris, and need. If he had his way, She would fill him completely, give him water and feed his thirst. But that was the sorrow of it. She offered nothing he could not give himself. When he was ready to be still, when he was ready to drink, he would.

Now, against the vast emptiness, a room like the throne of a king, tiles like dark glass, columns made of granite. And in the span, a touch like the pressure of a woman's finger on his cheek:

-- You have come far, to know this.

His power bubbled up from his core, thrashing like a wild river to the surface. He dragged in his breath, and gave by way of an answer, Thank you for seeing me.

She had drawn him through her shield and let him be him.

-- You needed only to come.

True or false? But why would She lie? She did not lie.

He saw a woman stepping between two columns. His heart surged and quieted, surged again. The lighting was spare. She entered shadow, a silhouette, passed into light, showing her face.

He would have wished for composure-- alas, these things are what they are. Her face, the face he gave her, spoke for him, not for her, but it struck at him anyway, and his knees melted. Not long ago, John had done the same, in his presence. His arms thrown wide, Hephaestion, born fourteen hundred and seventy years ago in another era, bowed his head to the Lady of the Blessed Waters.

She did not say, Don't. She knew the power She possessed over living things.

She came to him and put out her hand. Her hand, long and pale and not hers, tipped back his chin until they were eye to eye. He saw a face shaped delicately, perfectly, like the petal of a flower. He saw his sister's face in adult form, a face that lived only in his imagination, now worn by the prelate of god. His eyes stung-- it hurt to look at Her. This too, weeping men, She was used to. She wore a garment of old Misenos, the tunic and shawl of a highborn lady. A construct, completely his. He lowered his gaze, though She held up his face to Hers.

Softly, the Lady smiled. Can it be undone?

"Men did it," he uttered, raggedly, like a mortal. "We just have to find it."

She took away her hand to look past him, presumably at Zoa. "There is no dynamic protection here. The shield protects me from the minds of others through a kind of resonance, like interference or static. It will not hold against energy. Something else must be done if a defense is to be made here, today. What will you do when you find it?"

Zoa did not answer.

Hephaestion clenched his eyes to stop his tears. Shook himself to reality. Then got up and turned around. Predictably, Zoa stood staring, her mouth wide with shock. What did she see? Hephaestion wondered.

He answered the Lady in Zoa's stead: "Her people have a vessel in geosynchronous orbit. When we find the device, we must get the device to them in a ship. Will you allow the ship and the passage of a transport glider into your city? We need to bring the device outside the gravity well, allow it to detonate in space. And we must hurry."

Zoa blinked as though hearing the plan for the first time. Her gaze flickered, taking in Hephaestion, who stood beside the Lady. She studied them together, and for a moment Hephaestion was worried by her alarm.

Then Zoa said, "You are an Avanthite."

The Lady tilted her head. "None of this world know that name." Her glance shifted to her security chief. "Allow the Science Commission to bring close its warship Cyon and one of its gliders. You," she said to Zoa, "may try now to use your scanners. I have drawn inward as much as I can."

Zoa said, "I don't understand. Aren't you coming with us to help us?"

"I am helping you."

"You are sending us on our way."

Hephaestion said, softly, "Zoa."

Her voice thinning to a fine thread, without looking away from the Lady, Zoa protested. "Hephaestion, you have no idea what she is, no idea."

Meanwhile, the Lady drew about her a stillness that brushed the air with a metallic chill.

"Zoa," Hephaestion said, "if we die, we die. Death, life, it's all one to the goddess that made us. Today is just another day, our world just another world. We should not presume."

That shut Zoa's mouth.

The Lady turned her head to gaze at him.

* * *

As they retreated across the grounds of the Residence, Zoa clamped Hephaestion's arm. "Could you not have asked for her aid?"

"She'll give it no matter that I asked for nothing. I'm sorry you saw her another way. Whatever aid she gives, no matter how she gives it, she'll want her hand in the matter unseen."

Zoa gasped with relief. "You're sure?"

"It will be no different, to her, than healing the infirmed," he reassured her. "Now, call your people."

"Good. Better than good. Hephaestion, you haven't any idea what she--" Zoa broke off, hurried ahead. Contacted her team, told it to apply its scanners on the ground.

No success. She linked with the Cyon, asking the ship to activate its powerful array. Waiting for the Cyon's report, Zoa took a transmission from the ERU. The city's harbor allowed freight to bypass Quiranium detectors when Quiranium was listed on the declaration. Without access to motorized haulers, Amorium was supplied through its harbor on the Diona. Port Authority had accepted Quiranium delivery for twenty linear accelerators. The machines were still in Amorium, along with their hard to come by but essential element, Quiranium, crated and stored for export to needy venues throughout the world. The linear accelerators, used to treat the severely ill, cost about a million each. The expensive machines were marked for hospitals.

Zoa wanted to know why the machines were off-loaded in Amorium if they were destined for use elsewhere.

The ERU said the machines were donations. They had arrived without a destination, laid at the feet of the Lady in the form of manifest documents, a futile attempt by a wealthy patron to buy back his health.

"A bribe," Zoa concluded.

"And so it goes," explained the ERU official. "The Lady refuses compensation, so the supplicant lays out a generous donation thinking he'll get in to see her that way. Usually doesn't work but they keep trying."

"Who was the donor?" Zoa asked.

"Anonymous." Which meant it would take more time than they had to unravel the trail.

The fact that there was a mystery sealed it for Zoa. She demanded immediate access to the shipment.

"I thought you might say that. Where are you?"

Zoa impressed the official by telling him she was leaving the Residence inside the Citadel and awaiting delivery of her glider.

When he recovered, the official provided coordinates and told her he'd met up with the ITAN counterterrorism task force. They, too, had expressed interest in the crates and were enroute to the harbor.

-- Next Chapter